I Don't Want to Talk About It
by AlicevsLife
Summary: TFA It's rough being a medic-bot, especially if your name is Ratchet. Rating may change.
1. Chapter 1

Ratchet kept his optics fixed on the screen in front of him, ignoring the itching sensation between his shoulder plates. He didn't care how long that fragging ninja-bot stared at him, he didn't want to talk about it.

He shrugged a little to rid himself of the sensation and continued to study the monitors. A small fire had sprung up near the docks. The local law enforcement could handle it, but he should probably call Prime and…

"Would you quit looking at me like that??" He snapped, whirling around to glare at the bot perched cross-legged on the back of the couch. Prowl gazed back at him, unruffled by his superior's outburst.

"My apologies, Ratchet." The ninja uncurled gracefully and landed lightly on his feet. "I merely thought you would wish to discuss the events of this afternoon,"

Ratchet winced. He'd been afraid of that. He mentally cursed Sari and her repeated urging of the taciturn ninja to 'reach out' to his fellow bots. He'd gotten along with the old Prowl just fine. "And since when do I need a nanny-bot?" he growled.

Prowl looked a little hurt. "Suit yourself," he replied somewhat coldly. He turned to leave. Ratchet shuffled his feet uncomfortably, feeling like the world's biggest aft-head. He sighed. He owed the little glitch.

"Kid, get back here," he called after the retreating ninja. Prowl paused, one servo on the doorframe. He didn't turn.

"Did you need something, Ratchet?"

Ratchet cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Perhaps it would help to… talk about it," He looked steadily at the dark bot partially obscured by shadows. "With a friend."

The ninja-bot regarded him for a long moment. "Perhaps," he said, and returned to the couch.

"But if you breathe a word of this to anyone I'll throw your skinny aft into the nearest trash compactor."

Prowl shrugged. "Fair enough. I'm not Bumblebee, you know. I can keep my mouth shut for more than five minutes,"

"True," the older bot chuckled, "Although if I recall correctly, he won that bet,"

Prowl arched one eyebrow delicately. "A technicality. He was tied up and unconscious the entire time,"

Prowl waited patiently, servos folded in his lap.

"I'm getting there," Ratchet snapped. "I'm just…warming up to it," Ratchet was going to weld that fragging eyebrow down. Cut the kid's repertoire of facial expressions by half.

He knew he was stalling. "It started with Bumblebee…" he began. It always did.

_Flashback: _Ratchet was in a foul mood. He had fully intended to spend the day parked in front of the Autobot's outrageously large television, sipping on coolant and watching reruns of his favorite human shows. He'd just settled onto the sofa, remote in hand, when Bumblebee burst into the room, vaulted over the armrest, and came skidding to a stop in front of him. Ratchet was not impressed.

"Ratchet! Ratchet! Ratchet!" the yellow bot shouted, even though the object of his attention was less than three feet away. "Come quick! Bulkhead's in trouble!"

His optics widened in alarm and Ratchet sprang from the couch, dropping his coolant to the floor. The container shattered and sent the liquid splattering over the concrete.

"Where is he?" he demanded sharply, already heading for the door. "What happened?"

Bumblebee hurried after him. "In his studio," he replied worriedly. Ratchet took off down the hall at a run. If Bulkhead was playing artist again, Primus only knew what he had done to himself. His last "masterpiece" had exploded rather spectacularly and sent chunks of superheated plaster ricocheting around the base. Prime had nearly lost an earfin in the disaster.

He threw open the door of the large store room that served as Bulkhead's "studio" and froze. Then he blinked and stared again. Bulkhead stared back at him sheepishly. The giant bot was plastered to the wall by a bright red substance, his wrecking ball wrapped tightly around his neck and shoulders, holding him completely immobile. Luckily for him, he was fine. Robots didn't need to breathe. Otherwise, Ratchet would have strangled him megacycles ago.

"How?" Ratchet asked in what he thought was a perfectly reasonable voice, but something in his tone made Bulkhead cringe and sent Bumblebee scurrying for cover.

The green giant squirmed, or tried to. "Well, uh… see I was reading in this book of Sari's about this guy who throws paint at a canvas to make pictures and I thought 'why not try that?'" he paused, embarrassed.

"And?" Ratchet demanded.

"And so we attached the bucket to his wrecking ball and Bulkhead launched it at the wall," Bumblebee chimed in from his hiding place behind the door. He peeked out, caught sight of Ratchet's expression, and hurriedly ducked back down in case the old bot started throwing things.

Bulkhead watched him hopefully. "So…uh…what do you think, doc-bot?"

Ratchet considered. "I think…this is a first for me," he said, surprised.

"You mean you've never seen a bot stuck to the wall with red paint? Wrapped in his own wrecking ball?" Bumblebee piped up, his eyes sparkling. Little fragger was _proud_.

One patented Ratchet-glare took care of that problem. "No," he said flatly, "I mean I've never seen bots as dumb as you two. Congratulations, kid."

"Gee thanks Ratch—"

"That wasn't a compliment!" Ratchet snarled.

Satisfied that the yellow mini-bot once again cowered in the corner, Ratchet set to work untangling Bulkhead from his own arm.


	2. Chapter 2

It took all of Ratchet's persuasive power to keep Bumblebee from running to Sari for "help," sure that her Allspark-infused Key could somehow remove the gallons of paint from Bulkhead's delicate joints. Ratchet refused to allow the experiment. He'd spent enough time on the sidelines lately while his hard-earned medical skills were made obsolete by an eight-year-old. No, this was his job, frag it, even if it was only a clean up. He grimaced. Maybe he should just recharge in the broom closet with the vacuum-bot.

Now thoroughly miserable, he stomped into the main room to look for the only bot who didn't annoy the slag out of him. Exasperatingly altruistic as sometimes he was, Prime was a good listener. Their stay on Earth had changed him, forced him to stop hiding from his troubled past behind long-winded speeches and old war vids and become the leader Ratchet had always known he could be. He was proud of the kid. Trusted him. He reminded him of another bot he'd known all those years ago, during the War.

Unfortunately, Prime didn't appear to be in a listening mood. He had his own problem to deal with—and it didn't particularly like machines.

"I don't care how it got there!" A gravelly, Detroit accent boomed from the monitor phone. Across the room, the radio suddenly stopped playing the country music Optimus was so fond of and died with a pathetic fizzle. "It's trashing my city!"

"We'll take care of it, Captain," Finally noticing the medic, Optimus shot him a harried look. Ratchet knew that look, and he didn't like it.

"Ratchet, I need you to take Prowl and head for the park. The Dinobots are on a rampage," Optimus rubbed his earfins wearily. Yep, definitely Prime's I-have-no-idea-how-to-deal-with-this-so-I'm-dumping-it-in-your-lap-Ratchet look.

Well two could play at that game. "And just what are Twinkle-Pedes and I supposed to do against an entire herd of Dinobots?" He demanded, turning his fiercest glare on the Prime. He threw in a generous helping of scorn and a light dash of fatherly disappointment for good measure.

Optimus wasn't fazed in the slightest. Frag. "The Dinobots trust Prowl," he replied reasonably. "They'll listen to him,"

"And if they DON'T listen to him? Is he supposed to hum them into submission?"

"Then you'll be there as backup with your EMP generator," The Prime was ready with an answer.

Prowl materialized beside them, and Optimus and Ratchet jumped. Ratchet was going to run out of glares at this rate. This was his eleventh since breakfast.

"Prime's plan is sound, Ratchet," The ninja-bot didn't bother to make eye contact. Instead, he padded silently over to the monitor and typed swiftly. An image of downtown Detroit appeared on the screen, looking somewhat worse for the wear. "You and I should be able to handle the situation,"

Ratchet stared at him. Kid hadn't even been in the room, how did he even know what they were- Prowl glanced back at him, eyebrow lifting. Because he was Prowl, that's how.

"This isn't up for debate, Ratchet," Prime was annoyed now.

Ratchet glanced at the monitor. On the screen, an out-of-control Grimlock tore apart a freshly painted swing set, chunks of spit-coated metal flying.

"Guess not," Ratchet said gruffly. Transforming, he followed Prowl out onto the streets.


End file.
